Saturday, February 12, 2011

one week 'til Austin Marathon

ORN:  4.3 miles, w. 3 x 1 mile intervals @ 7:55 (and 130 bpm)

It was a treat to head out mid-day to run in the "tropical" temperatures of 38F today.  After hitting 9 below zero on Thursday morning, it felt good...so good, I went out in shorts; I always enjoy doing that with lots of snow on the ground.

With one week to go to the Austin Marathon, the schedule called for some simple mile repeats.  I was thrilled to be under 8 minutes on each of them, especially with the monster head cold that set in last night.  Will do a few normal runs this week and then race on Sunday.

I've never been in Austin, Texas before; in fact I've spent precious little time ever in the entire state of Texas.  I did a Google Satellite tour of the full marathon course today.  Maybe not a good idea, though...every time I do that it hits me afresh just how looooooong a marathon is.  We'll sure get a tour of the capital of Texas, though.  The route looked like a usual city marathon, especially over the first half of the course when we'll have all the half marathoners with us.  The last mile and a half of the course winds through the University of Texas campus.  It'll be hard for this Purdue guy to give anyone a "hook 'em horns" sign, yet I hope I'm alert enough at that point to be capable of such a gesture.  Couldn't find any obvious places to stash bananas, so I'll be back on using Gu during the race.  I plan to do a 4/1 run/walk and keep the heart rate under 135.  Temperatures look to be in the 60s for most of the race, with a 60% chance of rain.  I have no idea how I'll react to such warmth after such a long, frigid winter.   Combined with the head cold, it could be interesting.  It will be what it will be.  

I am truly looking forward to the full trip, though.  G and I will meet up with Darrell and his wife on Saturday afternoon and enjoy the full weekend.  We'll take them back to the airport on Monday, meet up with an old Purdue roommate for lunch on Monday in Austin, then head to San Antonio for a day.  After that, we head to the Gulf Coast for the rest of the week, staying near Corpus Christi.  It'll be a nice break. 

Race reports will pop up here next week.  If you are super intense (or bored beyond tears next Sunday), my bib for the race is 5562 and you can track me on race day via the race site.   

Persevere.

.

 

5 comments:

Darrell said...

Oh,no. Running a marathon with a head cold is no fun. Hopefully it stays in your head and doesn't go down to your lungs. Last year's LA marathon was a tough one when I had bronchitis.

Maybe we can talk our support crew into bringing you bananas at stategic locations.

We're looking forward to the weekend, head colds and stiff backs be damned.

Wes said...

those are nice repeats, and predict a nice trip to Texas! Looking forward to the reports...

Anonymous said...

I just downloaded your run/walk calculator. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for sharing it! You took all the leg work out of having to create one for myself. Now I can put that saved energy into my training. Thanks, again!

Cindi
Vancouver, Washington

Sarah said...

Best of luck to you and enjoy! Looking forward to the report, as always. : )

IronWaddler said...

Have a great trip to Texas !! Have a great run.